Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League

The Minnesota High School Quizbowl League, sponsored by the Minnesota Quiz Bowl Alliance, is one of the most popular quiz bowl competitions in Minnesota. It is currently run on questions supplied by NAQT, derived from one of the A series they produce each year. The league is directed by R Robert Hentzel and takes place over multiple nights at three separate divisions, which compete at different sites. Each night, a team plays four rounds within its division. After all divisions have played 12 rounds, teams from the top 16 schools convene for a double-elimination playoff. Each school can only send one team to the championship tournament. The MNHSQB League championship tournament considered by many to be more prestigious than the official NAQT Minnesota State Championship, as it is generally has a more challenging field and is partially televised.

Format

The current format consists of two eight-minute halves of NAQT tossups and bonuses, with a pair of lightning rounds after the first half. The lightning round consists of groups of ten related questions worth ten points each. The team that is not in the lead gets the first choice of three subjects for their round, and have one minute to answer as many as they can. The other team then gets a 30 second bounce-back phase on questions the first team missed. After this, the process is repeated with the leading team choosing from the remaining two choices. 15-point powers are used in league play, but -5 penalties are not.

In previous years, MNHSQB games consisted of four "phases." The first phase consisted of twelve very short warm-up tossups. The second phase consisted of standard tossups with powers and bonuses. The first two phases were combined for timing purposes, and were 9 minutes long. The third phase was a lightning round, and the fourth was more tossups and bonuses, for 6 minutes.

Questions

Regular season play uses tossups and bonuses from NAQT's A-Series and lightning rounds from its Standard Television Series. The playoffs use questions from a regular NAQT set, which are more difficult. You can read a sample packet of A-Series questions here.

History

For many years of the pre-NAQT era, all events were held at Burnsville, so that all schools had an opportunity to appear on public television. Patrick's Press questions were used in the years preceding NAQT's involvement, and Questions Unlimited provided questions before then, in the mid-eighties. Records suggest that it was once part of a quiz show on KSTP. Very incomplete records of those years can be found here.

Since the 2006-2007 season, play has been on NAQT questions. With five titles each, Eden Prairie and Wayzata are tied for the most MNHSQB titles in the NAQT era. Wayzata also holds the record for points in a game in that era, scoring 1,035 points against Edina during round 6 of the 2017-18 season.

Past Results

Pre-NAQT era

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
1971
2000	Patrick's Press
2001	Patrick's Press		Saint Thomas Academy	Minneapolis Southwest
2002			Saint Thomas Academy	results missing
2003			Chaska	results missing
2004			Chaska	results missing
2005			Saint Thomas Academy	results missing
2006		88	Saint Thomas Academy	results missing

NAQT era

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2007	MN-06	98	Eden Prairie	Saint Anthony Village	Saint Thomas Academy	Wayzata
2008	MN-07	112	Eden Prairie	Orono	Minnetonka	Wayzata
2009	MN-08	100	Chaska	Eden Prairie	Saint Louis Park	Wayzata
2010	MN-09	100	Eden Prairie	Saint Thomas Academy	Chaska	Saint Louis Park
2011	MN-10	108	Chanhassen	Saint Paul Central	Eden Prairie	Wayzata
2012	MN-11	110	Wayzata	Saint Paul Central	Chaska	Mounds View
2013	MN-12	110	Wayzata	Saint Paul Central	Chaska	Eden Prairie
2014	MN-13	105	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	Saint Thomas Academy	Blake
2015	MN-14	130	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Blake	Edina
2016	MN-15	131	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2017	MN-16	139	Wayzata	Saint Thomas Academy	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2018	MN-17	134	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Mounds View	Edina
2019	MN-18	118	Mounds View	Wayzata	Burnsville	Eden Prairie

External Links

• Minnesota Quiz Bowl Alliance
• Current (2019-20) standings